In the Beginning
by Aedammair
Summary: Relationships are like flowers. You plant the seed, you keep watch over it, and eventually it grows into a beautiful garden. Or a crazy bed of weeds if you're Auriga Sinistra and Severus Snape...
1. Mind the Door

A collection of mini-short stories about my new favorite couple, Auriga Sinistra and Severus Snape.

Let me know if you like them...

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'I said good night!'

He should have expected the door to slam in his face but for some reason, possibly the recent revelation that Auriga Sinistra was a far more complicated woman than he gave her credit for, he was off his game ever so slightly. Instead of stepping back in anticipation, he stepped forward to say something and was smacked in the forehead by a very hard, very unforgiving, chamber door.

'Ow!' he shouted, unbearably close to stamping a foot in the empty hallway.

The door opened very slightly and Auriga's face appeared in the crack. 'Did I just…'

'Hit me in the face with the door?' She nodded. 'Yes.'

She considered him for a moment and he took a step closer in anticipation of an apology and an open door.

He really should have paid more attention to the lecture on women his father had given him when he'd hit puberty.

'Good,' she said and slammed the door again.

This time, his nose took the brunt of the impact and he could have sworn he heard her laughing.


	2. Volatile Combinations

The potion was delicate. He'd made it a few times before, each with the same perfect result. It required him to be completely focused on the cauldron, on the ingredients, and on the incantation that he repeated in his head every time he stirred the ever changing mixture. He dropped three dried fig leaves into the silver liquid, stirred it twice counterclockwise and was satisfied when it turned a vibrant yellow color.

'Severus, I need your help with something.'

The voice caught him off guard – he'd been so focused on the potion that he hadn't heard Auriga come into his lab – and he dropped the spoon into the potion.

Not good.

He waited for the explosion, closed his eyes tightly and waited for the stone shattering boom.

Nothing.

He opened his eyes to find Auriga looking at him strangely. 'Something the matter?' she asked.

'Auriga, what have I told you about knocking before coming here?' he said with a deadly quiet voice. He stared at the potion with a dumfounded expression. It was still yellow.

'I know, but I forgot. Besides, you're working on the medicinal potions today, nothing volatile.'

The timing was perfect, so perfect that if asked later he'd have to commend the gods for having such a perfectly balanced sense of humor.

Auriga smiled innocently at him, the potion turned purple, and the cauldron exploded, covering both of them – and most of the lab – in a sticky purple mess.

He calmly wiped potion from his eyes and stared at Auriga with a look of murderous intent. She smiled back at him.

'Purple is a lovely compliment to your pale skin, Severus,' she said.

To his credit, he didn't mean for the glob of potion stuck to his hand to smack her in the forehead but when it did, he felt a certain sense of satisfaction.


	3. A Kingly Gesture

Auriga was not his usual chess partner, but seeing as how Remus Lupin went off and married Nymphadora Tonks and left for their honeymoon in the middle of the winter break, Severus was stuck with the starry-eyed twit to keep him company while the masses enjoyed a few extra days of calm before the students returned. He thought he'd be able to make it through just one game without the twitch in his eye becoming a painful annoyance but on her second frustratingly good move, he decided that ignoring it wasn't possible.

_Twitch…twitch…twitch…_

'By chance, did Albus teach you to play chess?' he asked her as he moved his last remaining bishop to a much safer spot on the board.

She watched his index finger – long and bony – point to the spot and the heavily armed bishop walked begrudgingly towards it. Wizard chess had always fascinated her, though she greatly preferred the Muggle version. It was less violent.

She motioned for her rook to move forward and block her queen, which it did without any hesitation or begrudging looks. 'Actually, I learned from Remus, just before the wedding.'

The twitch in his left eye was big enough that even she caught notice of it, though she was kind enough not to say anything.

'Remus taught you to play chess?' he asked, as casually as possible.

'Yes, though he won most every game against me.' She watched as his pawn moved into the firing line of her knight and grimaced only slightly when the knight impaled the poor unsuspecting pawn. 'I'd forgotten how violent this game is,' she said.

He smirked. 'You always were too sensitive for wizard chess.' His smirk grew as he brought his bishop closer to her queen.

She frowned at him, then glanced at the board. He'd left his king open to her last remaining rook, a mistake he most likely would never have made while playing with Remus. She smiled slightly as she pointed her finger and her rook smashed into his king.

'Checkmate, Severus,' she said in a sing-song voice.

He stared at the board with an expression akin to surprise. His king looked up at him and shook what remained of its tiny stone fist at him, an action he'd never seen a wizard chess piece display.

'My king just made a rude gesture at me,' he said, his head tilted to the side.

'Maybe it knows you were beaten by a girl,' Auriga suggested, laughter in her voice.

_Twitch…twitch…twitch…_

'Shut up, Auriga.'

'Of course, Severus.'


	4. Weekend Warriors

They're about to spend an entire weekend together.

Technically alone, though there will be approximately 30 students following them around at odd hours of the day.

The idea would be repulsive to him if it wasn't for one single thing – he's hopelessly attracted to the starry-eyed twit that inhabits the Astronomy Tower and a very small part of him is as eager for this weekend as a child is eager for Christmas.

Eager, that is, until she walks down the stairs wearing Muggle clothing, carrying her tweed coat over her forearm, and he's forced to re-evaluate his attraction.

'Why are you wearing Muggle clothing?' he asks with his patented sneer. Though he'd never admit it to her, the turtleneck jumper does amazing things for her bust line and the denims hug all the right curves…

_Good god…_

She smiles lazily at him as she reaches the last step. 'Because we're going to a Muggle village and I have a feeling we'd stick out quite a bit in our robes.'

He frowns. 'We're on a field trip, Auriga, not a holiday.' He points to the Great Hall where the students are waiting. 'Even they'll be wearing their school robes.'

She tilts her head to the side and smiles, a gesture that has never favored him in the past. 'Care to place a wager on that?' She pulls her hair up into a loose bun and it takes him a moment to remember the question.

Ah, yes, a bet.

He's too proud not to. 'A night's worth of drinks on the loser.'

'Done.'

'Fine.'

She joins him by the doors to the Great Hall and they go inside and much to Severus' chagrin the group of students that will be accompanying them to the small seaside town in Scotland is wearing their Muggle clothing.

'I believe I'll be drinking Firewhiskey this weekend, Severus.'

_Twitch…twitch…twitch…_

'I hate you just a little bit sometimes,' he says through clenched teeth.

She laughs and brushes past him and he realizes that of every emotion she stirs in him, hate is possibly the least prevalent. In fact, as she pulls her coat on and smiles across the hall at him, he's tempted to say he feels greatly for her.

_Twitch…twitch…twitch…_

'Bugger,' he says softly and joins the group.


	5. Drunken Bastards

He's had too much Firewhiskey.

It isn't necessarily the burning feeling in the pit of his stomach or the sensation of double vision that's plaguing him at the moment that tells him this noble truth. No, it's the fact that Auriga is smiling at him and he's thinking naughty thoughts.

Naughty, naked thoughts.

'I believe you're drunk, Severus,' she says with a laugh that suggests something he's not quite clear on at the moment.

He files it away to think about later.

'You're mistaken, Auriga,' he says with only a little bit of a slur. 'I am perfectly sober and functioning and not at all attracted to you.'

Her smile widens and he pauses for just a moment to consider what he's said.

'I didn't mean any of that,' he says and very loudly bangs his head into the table.

There are cool fingertips against the back of his neck and the smell of lavender invades his sense. When he turns his head, Auriga is right next to him, only inches away, and her smile is just as bright. It makes his head hurt slightly.

'Would you like me to take you back to the hotel?' she asks and he can hear the concern in her voice, even if he can't directly discern it as such.

'Very much so. Your room or mine?'

She laughs, thankfully, and helps him into a standing position. The students returned to the hotel earlier and have been under the watchful eyes of three local wizards who volunteered their security purposes for this trip. It allowed Severus to make good on his payout from the earlier bet.

She leans him against the wall while she pulls on her coat – her glorious tweed coat that makes him think of Scottish moors and wailing winds – and then they're off, staggering into the cool October evening and down the street from the hidden, tiny pub to their hotel. He's aware of her presence beside him, of her arm around his back, and of the heat she's radiating even through the coat.

He's also aware of the fact that he's too drunk to remember that he doesn't like her.

'I meant it,' he says, surprising her just enough that she staggers slightly.

'What's that?' she asks. They're within sight distance of the hotel.

'I find you incredibly attractive.'

They stop in the middle of the cobblestone street and he almost falls from her grasp. When he looks at her, she's wearing a facial expression he's never seen before and it unnerves him just enough to get rid of the double vision.

'You're a bastard sometimes,' she says, which is, quite honestly, not the reaction he was expecting.

She drags him along to the hotel and leaves him – confused and still highly intoxicated - the lobby, which manages to confuse him even more because he can't remember what floor he's staying on and she's halfway to the lift when he remembers that she has his key.

'Auriga, wait,' he says and stumbles forward to catch up with her.

She turns, an almost hopeful look on her stormy face. 'What?'

'You have my key,' he says.

He isn't all that surprised when the metal object in question smacks him in the forehead, right between his eyes. It seems to be the easiest place for her to hit, lately.

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A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. I'm so glad you like my Sinistra and that she fits with those that have come before her. Keep reading! 


	6. Absolutely No Sympathy

She hasn't spoken to him in more than a month and while that would usually leave him feeling content, this time around he's discomforted by her silence. And silence it is – cold and bitter and radiating a fury he's not quite ready to say wasn't his fault. She's stopped sitting next to him at meals, has stopped coming by for random reasons, has even stopped asking him to play chess with her when there isn't anything else going on in the castle.

He owes her an apology, he knows it, but the stubborn, prideful part of his personality won't allow him to say it.

It is the Thursday just before the mid-semester break and the staff lounge is nearly full with the professors and their papers and their gaudy hats. He can't be certain, but he's fairly sure the carrots in Pomona Sprout's pointy hat are singing a hymn about spring. It's enough to make his head want to crack open and drop his brain on the floor. He's positioned himself in the corner, away from the crowd, and has silently begun the process of grading his first and third years' mid-terms.

He smells her perfume before he sees her and he wonders if he's finally getting too old for this job. The only open chair in all of the lounge happens to be across the table from him and she's standing next to it, a pile of papers in her arms. He looks up at her and involuntarily frowns.

'Afraid the chair will bite, Auriga?' he asks before he can stop himself.

She continues to stare at him, her expression unreadable even to his well trained eyes. Finally, she turns on her heel and leaves the lounge.

Yes, they've had better conversations. He remembers them.

He makes himself go after her because he reasons that in all of Hogwarts she is the only one who maintains any sense of trust in him, any sense of friendship with him, and he owes it to her to regain what he has lost. Even if he isn't exactly sure why or even how he lost it.

'Auriga, wait,' he calls out when he catches site of her blue robes rounding the corner before him. When he rounds the corner himself, she's halfway up the grand staircase and she isn't stopping. 'Auriga!'

'Go away, Severus,' she says and even with the disdain infused into those words, he's happy to hear her voice.

He bounds up the stairs, two at a time, and reaches her as she turns down the main classroom corridor. 'I owe you an apology.'

'Correction,' she says, stopping a few feet away from him. When she turns, her loose hair whips around her and he's taken back by her beauty. He's never seen her truly angry and for a moment it both scares and hypnotizes him. 'You owed me an apology a month ago.'

'I've come to make amends,' he says.

'And I've asked you to go away.'

He follows her a few more feet, until she reaches her office door. This time, when the door slams shut, he doesn't hear her laughing on the other side of it.

Instead, he hears her crying and the heart he didn't even know he had breaks just a little.


	7. A Charming Confusion

He came to the astronomy tower hoping to wave a white flag and end the feud. Instead, he walked into the equivalent of a war zone, complete with projectiles and hostile environment.

'Bastard!'

Injury is almost added to the insult but Severus' reflexes are good enough that he ducks just as the ceramic jar flies past his head and crashes into the wall behind him. He's upright just in time to bat away a flying copy of Galileo's autobiography.

'I didn't know he'd written one,' he murmurs, mostly to himself.

Auriga hears him and pauses, mid-throw. The plaster replica of planet Earth that he recognizes as a Golden Trio remnant – mostly likely the work of Ronald Weasley if the distorted shape is of any consequence - lowers slightly.

'It's actually very interesting.'

The sudden calm in the storm that is Auriga Sinistra throws him off a bit. 'Pardon?'

She points to where the book landed. 'The autobiography. It's actually very interesting. Did you know that he proposed to his assistant, a woman named Hecate, after only six months of working together?'

Severus has to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Leave it to Auriga to be drawn to a romantic entanglement in the middle of a great astronomer's autobiography.

'Auriga, I'm not interested in the book.'

He ventures a step towards her and doesn't miss her involuntary flinch. It makes him flinch as well. Her hand moves towards the misshapen globe. He holds his hands up in what he hopes comes across as a gesture of surrender. She relaxes only slightly.

'I've come to apologize, properly, for being a prat that night at the hotel.' He pulls himself to his full height and dons a somewhat softened expression. 'I acted like a hormonal teenager and said things I shouldn't have. I would never hurt you intentionally, Auriga. Lord knows, I'd do practically anything for you.'

It's out there, and while he didn't mean to say all of that – especially the stuff he usually reserves for his most internal of monologues – he's glad he's finally gotten it out.

He expects…well, honestly, he doesn't know what to expect. If there's anything Auriga has taught him it's that red-haired women are thoroughly unpredictable, though he suspects that might just be Auriga's natural state. So when she comes around the desk and crosses the room and wraps her wool-covered arms around his waist, he's complete thrown off guard.

In future recollections of this moment, he will not admit to having squeaked in a most unmanly way, but Auriga will remind him that he did, in fact, elicit a high pitched noise the moment her arms closed around him.

'Apology accepted,' she says, her voice muffled by the fact she's buried her face into the chest of his teaching robes.

It takes him almost a full minute before he returns her embrace, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and holding her to him. Her hair smells like a mixture of wood smoke and lavender and he realizes that this is the first moment he's been this close to her since they were children. He soaks up her presence like a sponge and clings to the memory of it, just in case he doesn't get another chance to breathe her in.

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A/N: A big thank you to all of you who read and a huge thank you to those of you who review. It means a lot to me. :)


	8. The Girl in Yellow

So I'm fairly certain this is the last chapter, unless there's an uproar from its fans and I'm forced to write another one...and another one...and another one. No spoilers for the book - I promise.

Thanks for all the reviews - you guys are the greatest!

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It is finally June and the students are finally and leaving and Severus finally has his dungeons all to himself, a fact he isn't letting go to waste. He's made fifteen potions in the last six days; he's read seven of the twenty books Hermione Weasley (formerly Granger and formerly annoying) recommended to him at the last Weasley dinner; he's caught up on the ridiculous amount of sleep he missed while trying to keep the great dunderheads from killing themselves. All in all, he's made good use of this free time.

He even cleaned.

So, on this lovely June morning, he's shed his teaching robes, donned appropriate British summer attire, and has brought his book with him to the lake where he's stretched out, reading, under the shade of an oak tree.

He's halfway through _The Pride of the Yankees_ (Hermione's father read it while on Holiday in America and declared it to be the best book about a sport he didn't understand – Severus is inclined to agree, being a cricket man himself) when a loud crash sounds behind him and the familiar melody of Auriga's laughter floats down the walkway to him.

'Don't worry, Severus, I'm fine,' she says as she appears in his line of sight, brushing grass from the back of her yellow dress. A yellow dress he's never seen before and will readily admit to liking upon first sight.

'I take it your ballerina-like grace failed you yet again,' he says with a small smile.

He finds it incredibly endearing that she sticks her tongue out at him as she flops onto the grass next to him, her skirt flouncing out around her folded up legs. He pretends to go back to reading his book.

'What are you reading?' she asks after a beat or two.

He shows her the cover and the look she gives him is two parts confusion and one part interest. 'What's a Yankee?' she asks.

'An American baseball team – think cricket but without the skill.'

She smiles. 'Did you bring any other books?'

He mock frowns at her. 'Had I known that I'd be required to provide you with entertainment this afternoon, I would have brought my copy of the Grimm Brothers.'

'Oh please. I could recite those from memory.'

He fails miserably at trying not to laugh and is rewarded by yet another smile. She inches closer to him and it isn't just the warm summer sun that makes him hot around the collar. He feigns great interest in his book.

'Severus?' she asks, her voice taking on the curiosity quality that has always gotten him into trouble.

'Yes, Auriga?'

She's too quiet and he looks up from his book to see what's taking her so long. She's biting her lip – a sign that she's thinking about something – and when he catches her eye, she stops.

'Oh sod it,' she says and in a flurry of yellow cotton and red hair, she's in his lap and she's kissing him senseless.

It takes him a minute to catch up, but when he does the book is discarded and he pulls her closer, kisses her back and they stay that way for what seems like an eternity.

Eventually, Auriga pulls away for air and he's hard pressed not to admit that it's painful for him to allow it. She leans her forehead against his and smiles.

'Speechless?' she teases.

He smiles back at her, reaches up to brush the constant mess of curls away from her forehead, and kisses her mouth very lightly.

'Took you long enough,' he says and is more than happy to hear the musical laughter that pours from her.

She settles against him and hands him his book. 'Tell me about the pride of the Yankees,' she says with a smile that could convince him to buy the moon for her and he obliges.

In the warm summer sun, under an oak tree, Severus Snape, resident curmudgeon of Hogwarts, experiences bliss for the first time since his childhood.


End file.
